Portlanders love our pets. 70% of us have a pet in our home and most have more than one. Oh, but they are so cute and cuddly and love so unconditionally! We’re 3rd only to Denver and New York City for the number of top rated practicing veterinary health professionals. We love our pets, seriously. We attract the best surgeons, researchers, and specialists from around the world as a result. Our pets receive some of the best care in the nation.

Not surprisingly, we have funded a beautiful and comforting refuge from the shock and trauma of our pet’s injuries and pain, a hospital that welcomes all and advocates for hope and posivity in times that are so stressful on the entire family.

The new site of the Dove Lewis Hospital broke ground today at 19th and NW Pettygrove. It’s funded entirely by donations from the community. Present tonight: Members of the A.B. and Dove Lewis family, including their son James and one of his daughters, City Council Members Dan Saltzman and Sam Adams, several prominent veterinary doctors and surgeons, Dove Lewis staff and planners, a mighty handful of photographers and even a camera man, Reed Coleman and Ann Schatz.

Highlights include; hearing the story of Dove and A.B., which, by the way, I’m telling you, it’s a love story and a tear jerker and I’d love to tell you if you’d like to hear it; knowing their son was there with his family – it made Dove’s story and her genuine love for animals real and tangible; the actual breaking of ground and the subsequent and ceremonial onslaught of doggy diggers which resulted in many minutes of laughter and hilarity; Ann Schatz dedication to Dove and her profoundly touching toast and eulogy to Coley, her $1 dog that gave her a $100 million in return.

I was pretty much crying for a solid hour. Tears of love, remembrance, thankfulness and joy.